


[ reverse ]

by therentyoupay



Series: homesick [1]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Culture Shock, Gen, Homesickness, Modern AU, Reverse Culture Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: And still, people ask her, “How does it feel to be home?”





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**Author's Note:**

> _8/10/2018_.  
>  HEY, Y’ALL.
> 
> as most of you know, i just spent the last year and a half living in, working in, and eating/drinking my way through japan. it was a huge dream of mine since i was 12-years-old, and i’ve been so lucky and so fortunate and so grateful to be able to experience everything that i’m able to experience. the magnitude of the privilege and the beauty of the experience of my life is not lost on me. 
> 
> in the same vein, i am so so so so grateful to be able to come home to the US, to return to a wonderful, incredible catch of a partner, to come back to a supportive and welcoming circle of loved ones, to have a steady job and great opportunities for professional growth, to have made so many lovely friends so quickly in a new city. to put it simply, via a vastly dramatic understatement: i’m very, very lucky. ♡
> 
> within all of this, of course, has been the inevitable reverse culture shock, the slowly-sinking realizations that (once again) my whole lifestyle has irrevocably and drastically changed; that my current circumstances are in essence less “temporary,” that i am not simply “on vacation” to another place, so-to-speak;  that the life/lifestyle-altering decisions, the cultural and environmental changes have a permanence to them that inevitably requires adjustment, and time, and recalibration. many of you have experienced it before—it’s natural, it’s an ordinary part of the experience, it’s different for everyone even though it tends to follow a particular cycle, and no matter how many times i go through it, it’s still a “shock” every time. 
> 
> it’s with this mind-frame that i’ll be popping out little drabbles, ficlets, and snippets of stories that i’ll be writing the homesick series—as, y’all already know, writing is one of the ways that i process some of my own experiences. some of them will have very positive overtones, some of them will be bright and vibrant and indicative of the highest of the highs of my travels (of which there were many, many), but as the highs are also generally easier to share in general conversation, i may not feel the need to write about them quite as much as i’d like to write about the less-pretty points of “coming home.” this series will hopefully strike a bit of a balance, but what comes out is what comes out—whenever, however the feelings hit me in time. 
> 
> i’m giving y’all the heads up because this week in particular has been an interesting mix of love and gratitude and melancholy. this is a very special holiday week in japan, and it’s deeply-associated with a vast number of very personal and beautiful memories. while i am creating new and beautiful moments here, it’s only natural to look back and reflect on the past moments, and to remember how beautiful and conflicting they can be, and how torn it can make you feel between loving both worlds. 
> 
> please keep this in mind as you read. ♡ i hope you enjoy this little series as it develops. ♡♡♡
> 
> ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
> 
> as per usual, one of these will probably turn (at least partially) into jelsa, in some way. heads up, lovelies. in the meantime, this is about self-exploration and taking some time for oneself through a tumultuous time, because the value of that bears repeating again. ♡
> 
> [ **[tumblr](https://therentyoupay.tumblr.com)** ]

 

 **homesick • 1** [ “reverse” ]  **—  
** [  _ao3_  ] [ [tumblr](http://therentyoupayfanfiction.tumblr.com/post/176843222135/homesick-1-reverse) ]

 

* * *

 ⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

 She wants to ask,  _Do you ever get hit with a wave of nostalgia—so quickly, so deeply that it takes your breath away?_ It’s a silly, stupid question. Elsa already knows the answer, anyway, and to ignore it would be to ignore her role in Anna’s worst memories. At best, it would be horrendously insensitive, and at worst…

“You must really miss it,” Anna smiles warmly, affection affection affection pouring out from every shine and sparkle form her rose-tinted lipgloss, of her freckle-framed eyes.

Of course she misses it. Of course she doesn’t.

“I do,” Elsa acknowledges. “But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the right time to leave.”

⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

The world has changed, and yet it has not. People have continued to live, to endure, to go about their daily lives with their habits and tics and lifestyles. Things are as she remembers, and they are nothing like she remembers, and sometimes she feels like there is nothing familiar at all.

⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

And still, people ask her,  _“How does it feel to be home?”_

 ⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

It doesn’t take much to bring her back, these days. Case in point: just now, upon hearing the first few bars of a song that she listened to all throughout last summer, heard for the first time in a café while she was enjoying an early morning ( _decaf, always decaf_ ) latte respite from the adventure of exploring a crowded shopping center, just to watch how the people live and walk and communicate. To connect with her environment. To be a part of it. The song isn’t remarkable in and of itself, but the bars are so distinct, and the feeling they are linked to are so deeply entrenched in her bones that it catches her off-guard. Enough to make her fingers fumble for the handle of her current cup of herbal tea, enough to make the ceramic rattle against its plate; Elsa’s earth, quaking gently, with no one else to notice, all because of a little song.

Elsa gingerly takes a sip from her tea. She remembers the latte, the foam nearly gone. It was expertly-crafted, and the flavor had been divine, but now she can’t help but taste the burnt crisp of something on her tongue.

⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

“Do you want to visit?” Anna asks.

Elsa is shocked.  _Am I so obvious?_

“I just got back,” she answers, perplexed in spite of herself.

“We have the money,” Anna offers, bright and toothy, despite what years she has. “We could go—or, you know, you could? If you wanted to go alone… I mean, if you wanted the chance to visit—“

“It’s not the money,” Elsa smiles, gentle gentle gentle from every curve of the reassurance that she is trying to paint, within the very tilt of her jaw, within every flicker of light that she summons to her gaze. “It just not the right time.”

“It’s too soon?”

Unbidden, a lump rises in her throat. Elsa is no stranger to the vices that can grip a person’s breath—she is so acutely aware of the shape of her own throat, of the way air passes through it, the way the world travels through her lungs—but this thickness in her throat is not the panic that she knows, it’s not a battle she’s used to. The air is there—struggling, yes, but enduring  _more_ ; it isn’t trapped—and she has no idea what to do with it, what to do with this thing, this feeling that’s lodged itself inside her, the one that she can’t choke out.

“Elsa?”

“There is still so much else for me to see,” she answers, filling her sister’s gaze up with love love love, urging it forward with understanding, with  _please don’t ask me anymore_. “I’ll go back, eventually. I’m here now.”

She’s here, and that’s what matters.

⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

It’s difficult, learning how to answer people’s questions. 

> “How was it?”  
>  “What was it like?”  
>  “Were you homesick?”  
>  “What did your family think of your year away?”  
>  And always, “Do you miss it?”

Elsa has never been very good at answering such genuine questions in the first place. There is a series of scripts that she follows, the sort of antiquated, polite smalltalk that is perfectly appropriate for strangers—o _r co-workers, or friends, or family, or_ —

She never tells a lie, but she so rarely tells the truth.

“Wasn’t it hard?”

Elsa pauses.

Eventually, she finds her smile, stretches it on delicately, makes sure it meets her eyes. She says, “Everything gets easier with time.”

 ⇣      ⇣     ⇣     ⇣     ⇣

It will be a while before Anna asks her again, before she tries again. Elsa is sure of it, and it makes her both relieved and… disappointed.

Because It could never be too  _soon_  to go back, it may always be too late, but still—still, it wouldn’t make sense, it wouldn’t be fair, she couldn’t leave again, not so soon, not when she has only just—

It is not the right time.

 ⇢      ⇢      ⇢

 


End file.
